The Gondola Scam

by Jonathan Gash

  "Wotcher. Still at it, eh?" He looked rather heavily daubed and was carrying his gear, to everybody else's discomfort.

  "Lovejoy! Where did you get to? Poor Cosima! We searched for you, you know."

  "Oh, all over with now. Cosima's great, off to convalescence," I reassured him, at which he showed much relief. No questions after my health, mean sod.

  ''Keith's playing with one of those dredger engines near Murano. He'll be sorry he missed you. Are you free for supper?"

  We chatted all the way. They had shacked up somewhere near the station, after returning from Padua ("Queer lighting for painting in Padua, and no engines"). Gerry gave me their address. We said so long and swore undying determination to meet for a drink, the way folk do. Honestly, I was pleased at having met a confirmed neutral for once, and kept thinking of Keith's fascination for engines. An artist is a poor sort of ally, but a bloke with a dredger is a different matter.

  At Cosima's tiny apartment I had a bath, generally defilthed, and was flitting anxiously about the narrow calli outside when midday struck.

  Ten minutes later, with me all but demented from depressing convictions, a gondola tapped its hollow tap on the nearby canal and a woman's heel clicks echoed through the sottoportego archway. Alone, I watched her silhouette take color as Signora Norman emerged from the shadow. The gondolier pushed away, calling his warning "Ioooo" at the sharp comer. The gondola had looked genuinely fresh from its three-weekly tarring, so it was probably innocent, not some cunning private craft ballasted out with an armored division. I stood forward, in the little campo.

  "Hello, signora. This way."

  She was amused because I peered in every direction. "You're like a little boy playing Indians. Were you frightened I'd bring Tonio?"

  Derision's a woman's chief weapon, probably because it always works. "Deep locked cellars are fine for Casanova and Luciano. Not for me."

  "He was furious with me for letting you go, Lovejoy."

  "I'll bet. Erm, excuse me, please." Redfaced, I fumbled with my wire and let us both in. "Sorry about the shambles, but I haven't had a minute lately."

  "Night work, I suppose," she said evenly. Women entering somebody else's home look about with peculiar intensity. "Is this it?''

  "It's nice," I shot back, irritated. "No dungeons."

  "You mean Luciano?" She walked about, swishing her finger along surfaces and distastefully rubbing the dust away. They always make you feel to blame for everything. "Tonio explained that Luciano came with some tale of you making trouble. Placido had him wait downstairs."

  "Like they did Carlo?"

  "Who on earth's Carlo?"

  "Never mind." She was probably not in on Tonio's detailed arrangements for life and death. "Erm, would you care for a drink, signora?" I had this little tray with two glasses and a bottle of cheap wine. It was decked out with a few small carnations in a cup, though I'm normally on the flowers' side.

  "How kind." She sat in a wicker chair, clearly still slumming. Suspicious she was taking the mickey, I waited for the guffaw at my floral poshness but it never came. I was glad of that, and poured the wine with only the odd shred of floating cork.

  "Who is she, Lovejoy?"

  "Eh?"

  "The woman so conveniently absent."

  You have to admire a woman like that. Never been here before, and instantly she spots that it's a woman's flat. Clever. It's a female knack.

  "Oh. A friend. She's not here now."

  "She forgot to leave you her key."

  "Careless," I agreed, working out how to start. "But you've been a bit careless too lately."

  Actually her presence was worrying. There was none of that naturalness which Cosima brought, that inner shining. Older, with a brittle quality which somehow overlay her wealth. She knew she was beautiful, which intensified her, as if her movements announced, I have powder, you peasant—bring me more. Uneasily I remembered that it was in a nearby palazzo that poor old philosopher Bruno was betrayed to the Inquisition—by his patron, of course, in true Venetian tradition. You have to watch friends.

  My remark had touched some nerve "I'm never careless."

  "Indiscriminate's careless." I gave her a filled glass, 'Your scam must have seemed as foolproof as your father's."

  She looked into wine. "There's only one plan. Lovejoy."

  "No, love. On the one hand there's your dad's plan— forgeries galore, replace Venice's fabulous stuff as you go along. All"—and I couldn't help smiling—"for the very best motives, preserving the treasures for when Venice sinks. Then there's your plan. Very different. Your plan requires teams of expert movie people to make advertising videos of the fakes and the nicked antiques, right? In a score of different languages for marketing in different countries. Where did you have them made, Lavinia? The movie conference place on the San Giorgio?"

  "I'm simply carrying out Babbo's orders—"

  "Not you, love. Not once you'd shacked up with Tonio. Was it his idea to defraud your dad's syndicate and keep the originals? Or yours?"

  She smiled beatifically. "Mine. I have a safe house in Tuscany." She did that breast-tilting shrug I was coming to know and love. "They're morons in Tuscany, but what choice has one?"

  "And instead of taking them to the refuge your father's syndicate has organized, you'll send the counterfeits? Naughty girl."

  She took a swing at me, blazing. "Don't you lay that tone on me, Lovejoy." I only just escaped another clout as she spat out, "Or your word 'counterfeit.' Everything's counterfeit, or didn't you know? Belgium imports counterfeit heart pacemakers, for Christ's sake. France counterfeits wine. Britain exports counterfeit jeans. America's mass-produced counterfeit African tribal designs for ages—the Yoruba, Kuba and Senufo have never got a bent cent in royalties. Taiwan counterfeits spares for Boeing jets, Cartier watches, every damned thing." She was breathless, heaving with fury. "Want me to go on?"

  "And you'll have hundreds and hundreds of originals?"

  "Only some originals, Lovejoy." She pouted. "The best ones."

  She sounded so indignant I had to laugh. After a startled second she laughed with me. That really set me off. We sat there like fools, falling about, wine spilling so much she squawked and held her glass away to save her skirt, and that made us howl all the more.

  I roared till my ribs hurt and I lay spread-eagled at the sight of the lovely bird, helpless with her eyes streaming and her luscious shape skew-wiff in the chair, trying to control the slopping wine. Just when we'd started subsiding, one or other of us would gasp, "Only some originals," to set us off wheezing and choking laughter. What with the bonny bird becoming more and more disheveled and my face aching and my chest burning we must have looked a right pair.

  Gawd knows what Cosima's neighbors thought.

  As it turned out, Cosima's neighbors kept their thoughts to themselves. If they heard anything at all, they showed no sign, not even later on when the little bed thumped the wall under the stress we inflicted on it, Lavinia desperately shushing us by shoving her hand, still erotically gloved, between the headboard and the wall but to no avail. Her ungainly attempt set us laughing again so much it nearly made us ill. Sooner or later I'd have to make a list of the enemy, complete with reasons, but for the moment Lavinia's softness was all over me and I'd other things on my mind.

  Eventually after love we slept, Lavinia giving occasional moans as the laughter's ache returned now and then. Just before I fell into oblivion, I tried hard to work out why the hell she didn't know the real truth, but with my head warping her soft belly and my sweat drenching our sticky slumber I hadn't a chance. It's an odd fact that oblivion is better shared. What I wanted for the next two days was no friends and no lovers, and with luck I'd manage to pull off my own private scam. Instead, I leap into bed with the naked—you can't count gloves—boss enemy and develop this weird feeling that she and I are on the same side after all. Typical.

  "I thought real Venetians didn't use gondolas."

  "Only in extrem
e necessity. They're a diminishing breed."

  We were at the canal by the arch. The approaching gondolier couldn't believe his luck at getting a fare. I tried not to remember that Lavinia held Tonio's arm exactly like she was holding mine.

  “To I report for work tonight?"

  "Certainly not, darling. It's suspended for two days."

  "Any reason?" I tried to sound thick, but I knew the acqua alta was coming.

  "Don't bother your head, darling. I'll be here with you tomorrow, after breakfast. You'll receive further orders then." She descended grandly and took her place. "Your flower is artificial," she reproved the man severely. Gondolas have a little gilded vase fixed near the prow. This one's carnation was plastic.

  "Apologies, signora," the gondolier bleated.

  "Genuine is infinitely preferable," she said primly. The gondolier gave a puzzled glance at my snort of incredulity and even Lavinia looked round in surprise. She caught sight of my expression and got the joke.

  Her laughter echoed along the chasm of the narrow canal and reverberated under the pretty bridge until the gondola was out of sight. I remained there, smiling reflectively, in case she had second thoughts. When I was dead certain she'd gone I streaked off over the bridge and down the narrow calle in a hell of a hurry. I needed Cesare urgently. And Keith. And Caterina. And I was due at my own private funeral by midnight.

  When you need friends, where are they? Or even enemies. Cesare was nowhere, the bum. Two solid hours it took me, zooming exhausted around the Riva searching. I asked Ivan the Terrible, who only laughed. I spent a fortune on water taxis and gondolas. I even crossed hopefully to the Giudecca, and funds were becoming dangerously low.

  Eventually, would you believe, I found him half sloshed in that same bar down the Garibaldi laying down the law about a football match to two old geezers doing mental battle about who'd buy the next round. He was practically pickled and glared blearily up at me when I accosted him.

  "Cesare!" I made sure I looked elated and breathless. "Congratulations. Come quickly, mate."

  "Eh?" He peered and chuckled. "Oh, Lovejoy."

  "Help me!" Pulling him to his feet wasn't easy. The old blokes blinked while I tapped Cesare's face. "You drunken sod. We've got tenth prize in the Irish lottery! Come now! Where's your boat? The money—" At the magic word, the Venetian catalyst, three elderly blokes and the young barman had Cesare up and out in a trice.

  "It's down the Garibaldi, signore. This way."

  Another geriatric propelled me along at a spring. Everybody fired questions about the money, the lottery, the money, as we tore through the market to where Cesare's water taxi rocked in a small bacino. I told my eager helpers Cesare and I had equal shares.

  "Lucky I caught sight of our names on the board," I gasped, flopping into the boat. "Don't know how much, but ..." Willing hands cast us off amid shouts. Cesare's drunken attempts at the controls were too much for the spectators, who were frantic at the thought of escaping gelt. Two of the bar blokes got us going and reversed fast to the intersection so I could turn.

  I yelled thanks above the roar, and was off, with Cesare giving a boxer's triumphant handclasp and falling over. The crowd babbled satisfyingly on the rio.

  "Lovejoy," Cesare cried in a drunk's thick voice. "Where's my ticket? I've not lost it, have I?"

  'There is no ticket, stupid burke." Boats go faster than they seem. It was hell to control, trying to rear up out of the water. I had to put her down to walking pace. A hand damped on my shoulder.

  ''You got my ticket, Lovejoy?"

  "No," I said wearily. I'd have to go along with him until he sobered. "A lady's keeping it for you."

  "Where? Where?"

  "I'm not exactly sure. In the Eveline, a big white yacht. It UHis on the 21attere . . ."

  Drunk as a newt, he determinedly took the controls again. I was glad and sat back. I didn't want time to be too much of a problem. After we found Caterina I'd need every second.

  Boat people are funny. Drunk or sober, they can manage very well thank you. Like antique dealers, really, though on the whole we're ignorant of our pursuit, whereas boatmen know all about fathoms and other nauticals.

  Exactly two hours later, after umpteen shouted discussions with other boats and a long run down the lagoon, we found the Eveline wharved among smaller leisure fry in Chioggia.

  Beginning of the end, you might say, I thought as we stood off and looked at the great two-masted yacht from the lagoon. For whom I wasn't quite sure, but it was coming, almost within reach.

  26

  Chioggia's the port ("The enemy port,” I once heard a Venetian explain, nastily referring to some long-vanished barney at the bottom end of Venice's lagoon). It's very different. Venice is as unplanned as tangled wool. Chioggia by comparison is mathematical, its canals practically straight and the bridges predictable. The medieval Chioggians knew their trigonometry.

  Cesare had sobered by the time we hauled into port. He of the bloodshot eye and bleary gaze no longer believed the tale of my invented lottery. During our dash southwards he'd sussed that I was still laboring in some criminal vineyard. That put him in a foul mood. I was really pleased about that. It meant Cosima was being as distant with him as she'd been with me. Served him right, surly sod. Cosima had judged him to a nicety, even if it was odd how little she trusted me. He hovered us off the wharf while I gazed at the lovely vessel and schemed.

  "Park down the canal, okay? Be in that cafe."

  "Moor," he groused. "Cars park. Boats moor. Any more orders, Lovejoy?"

  "It's all in Cosima's interests," I explained sharply.

  "It had better be, Lovejoy. What are you up to?"

  "Look, mate. If you won't help ..." I stamped ashore and marched along the narrow fondamenta. Why the hell people aren't more trusting I'll never know. Just because I'd nicked his girl, ruined his happiness, tricked him about a lottery, wasted his day, and conned him into assisting my criminal enterprise was no reason to get narked. I ask you Where's trust gone?

  Here in Chioggia the Eveline assumed a wholly disproportionate grandeur, a cathedral visiting a shantytown.

  Stooping with reverence I walked its ridged gangway and knocked politely. Ship doors always looked misshapen to me but I suppose shipbuilders know what they're doing.

  The cabin was hangar-sized after Cesare's titchy boat. I'd never seen such floating opulence. Modem gauge, apart from an expensive small Malayan dancer carved riskily from stained meroh wood, but all of it costly and therefore full of messages to the world's poor. Malaysian meroh wood's usually reserved for the planks from which those Red Sea dhows are still built, so it took a particularly skilled ancient carver to tackle that length of grain.

  "Tonio! Darling!" Feet clattered and Caterina practically tumbled into the cabin. She'd been washing her hair and was wet and turbaned. And astonished, and then furious. Her female mind instantly blamed me, because she was the one who'd misunderstood.

  "Well, not quite darling. Only me." Even messy she was beautiful.

  She hated me, as usual. "What are you doing here?"

  I had to make something up, now I suddenly knew everything. "Erm, is Colonel Norman with you, please?"

  Her lip didn't quite curl. "He stayed home, like the little piggy in the nursery rhyme." She toweled her hair, thus casually stating that appearances didn't matter for the likes of Lovejoy.

  "And Mr. Pinder?"

  "Granddad's too old to come out much anymore. I want to know why you're here, Lovejoy."

  "I came with a message for anybody who . . . represents Mr. Pinder's interests."

  That spun her, stopped the toweling. It put naked alarm into her eyes.

  The fear was clearly for Tonio.

  I thought. Well, see if I care, and said, "I've been working for Mr. Pinder's scam, night shift. I called round at. . . Signora Norman's palazzo." To hide my near mistake—I'd nearly said Lavinia—I crossed the cabin and peered at the wharf. "You see, Caterina, I think your granddad'
s being fobbed off with inferior stuff. Deliberately. I told your mother that."

  "What did she say?" Still frightened. The picture was becoming clearer. Hardhearted vicious nympho Lavinia was looking purer by the minute.

  "She didn't believe me. Slung me out."

  She smiled then without fear, resumed toweling her head. "So you came to tell me."

  "Naturally," I lied, now just wanting to get the hell out. "I can give you proof."

  "You would." She stood before a mirror fluffing her wet rat-tail hair off her nape. "Has it ever occurred to you, Lovejoy, that you're an arrogant pig? You always right, everybody else always wrong?"

  "Be at the island about midnight," I said through a throat suddenly gone thick. First time I'd told any enemy I knew where it was. "It'll be empty then. Tonight's our night off. I can show you what I mean about the antiques."

  "Why me?"

  "Nobody else I can trust, is there? But come alone." Dangerous to look into her mirrored eyes, in case she spotted that I'd guessed her sudden new plan, so I moved towards the cabin steps. "It wouldn't be any use telephoning Mr. Pinder. He wouldn't believe me. And I've not enough money to stay here any longer. Your mum's lot hasn't paid me yet." I spoke the last bit with honest bitterness, which pitched everything safely at a proper level.

  "I might come." Her mind was going like a racing pigeon. Tonio had a real ally.

  "Want me to call here for you?"

  "No," she said quickly. "Somebody can boat me over—if I do come."

  "Right. I'll have everything ready. You'll see." I made the steps to the outside world.

  After a quick check to confirm that Cesare's boat was really and honestly moored outside the canal cafe where I'd said I'd meet him, I trotted off in the opposite direction. Now back to the opposite direction. Now back to Venice, leaving him stranded and completely out of the picture. About time Cesare'd done something right for once.

  Gerry and Keith were in a fine old sulk when I got to their place. They'd rented a garret straight out of La Boheme, not quite as tidy. It was only then, seeing them arguing, that the penny dropped, and Cosima's faint blush whenever they came up in conversation tipped off my stupid mind. I looked at the two fuming Aussies, thinking. Well, well. The row was something about painting.